JHS boys, girls fall to Falcons in hoops

Jacksonville's Tyler Perry (1) drives the baseline against South Central's Ethan Rogerson during the teams' Coastal 3-A Conference game Tuesday night at The Bird Cage. Perry scored on the play, but the Cardinals lost 61-55.

Rick Scoppe/The Daily News

By Rick Scoppe-Sports Editor/The Daily News

Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 09:30 AM.

Jacksonville could have won this one.

In fact, the Cardinals probably should have won it, and first-year coach James Jordan knew it. But JHS didn’t win.

South Central finished strong, outscoring Jacksonville 7-1 in the final 1:34 after trailing by four just two minutes earlier to come away with a hard-fought 61-55 victory Tuesday night in Coastal 3-A Conference action at The Bird Cage.

Earlier, South Central used a 15-0 third-quarter run to beat JHS 51-30 in the girls’ game.

“Tough loss,” Jordan said. “It should been a win for us. Game should have been in my pocket a long time ago, first quarter.”

But it wasn’t.

Still, the Cardinals (4-5, 1-1), who led 20-18 at halftime, rallied from a 3-point deficit to go up 52-48 with 3:48 left on a layup by Tyler Perry, who scored 11 points. But the Falcons (4-4, 2-0) scored six straight points, the final two on a layup by J.C. Simpson on his team’s third shot at the bucket for a 54-52 lead with 2:02 left.

In fact, the Cardinals probably should have won it, and first-year coach James Jordan knew it. But JHS didn’t win.

South Central finished strong, outscoring Jacksonville 7-1 in the final 1:34 after trailing by four just two minutes earlier to come away with a hard-fought 61-55 victory Tuesday night in Coastal 3-A Conference action at The Bird Cage.

Earlier, South Central used a 15-0 third-quarter run to beat JHS 51-30 in the girls’ game.

“Tough loss,” Jordan said. “It should been a win for us. Game should have been in my pocket a long time ago, first quarter.”

But it wasn’t.

Still, the Cardinals (4-5, 1-1), who led 20-18 at halftime, rallied from a 3-point deficit to go up 52-48 with 3:48 left on a layup by Tyler Perry, who scored 11 points. But the Falcons (4-4, 2-0) scored six straight points, the final two on a layup by J.C. Simpson on his team’s third shot at the bucket for a 54-52 lead with 2:02 left.

Simpson finished with 14 points.

Perry hit both ends of a 1-and-1 to tie it up, but 6-foot-6 sophomore Brian Brightwell, who had 20 points and 9 rebounds, gave South Central the lead for good on a bucket down low after a miss and scramble for the loose ball with 1:34 left.

After Jacksonville was called for a 10-second violation with 1:23 left for its first turnover since late in the third quarter, Brightwell hit the second of two foul shots, which was countered by one of two from the foul line by Jacksonville’s Nigel Vialva with 51.1 seconds left.

Then came the crushing blow.

With JHS down 57-55, South Central’s Saleik Edwards missed the front end of a 1-and-1, but the 6-3 Simpson ran down the rebound, and teammate Nick Randolph was fouled. Randolph, who had 11 points, hit both free throws for a 59-55 with 35.8 seconds left.

The Cardinals missed a shot on their next trip down court and turned the ball over moments later while South Central hit two of four foul shots in the final 15 seconds to seal the win.

“Down the stretch, we took some bad shots and made some tough decisions. Everybody wants to score, but nobody wants to play defense,” Jordan said.

As for the late turnovers — JHS had only 15 to South Central’s 10 — Jordan said his players were “too anxious” at times. And while that bothered him, so did missing scoring chances down low when, among others, 6-5 William Bodette was open and calling for the ball.

As it was, Bodette finished with 13 points and 6 rebounds.

“Got to get out of tunnel vision,” Jordan said. “You’ve got to be able to feed your big man, trust your big man. Let him know he’s part of the team. Too many, I don’t know how to put it, too many independent players. We have to work on that.”

Girls

South Central 51, Jacksonville 30: Jacksonville looked like it would make a game of it after pulling within eight points early in the third quarter, but South Central went on a 15-0 run and never looked back in picking up a road conference win.

Lyssa Wallace-O’Neal led the Cardinals (2-7, 0-2) with 15 points and 5 rebounds.

Down by as many as 15 in the first half, Jacksonville pulled within 27-19 on a jumper from the wing by Wallace-O’Neal 38 seconds into the second half. But that was as close as the Cardinals got as the Falcons (9-1, 2-0) scored the next 15 points.

Five different players scored for the visitors, including Shanique Streeter, who hit one of her four 3-pointers in the surge that gave the Falcons a 42-19 lead with 2:17 left in the third quarter. Streeter finished with 14 points.

“Our game plan was to slow the game down, just play our game and not try to run with them because they have a lot of fast players,” JHS coach Monique Gidrey said. “We did our game plan and just took it slow and shot our open shots.”

While the Cardinals were able to slow the game down using a 3-2 zone, it hurt them inside, where the Falcons continually had second-chance opportunities which led to them having 75 shots (they hit 21).

That was more than twice the shot total for the Cardinals, who were 10 of 38. JHS also had 37 turnovers, 13 more than the Falcons.

“If I can get the a little more aggressive, I think it would have been a little closer game,” Gidrey said. “But I’m pleased with my team. They’re getting better.”